Pony.ai Unveils 4th-Gen L4 Autonomous Truck Aiming for Mass Production
Pony.ai unveiled its fourth-generation L4 autonomous heavy truck at the IAA Transportation show in Hanover, built on GAC Lingcheng's T9 electric platform. The company plans to achieve mass production within the year and expand testing into European and Middle Eastern markets over the next two years. The new Robotruck cuts autonomous hardware BOM costs by 70% and lowers transport cost per ton-kilometer by 30%, marking a major milestone in commercial viability. It targets key overseas logistics markets suffering from high labor costs and severe truck driver shortages. The vehicle features full redundancy across six core systems—steering, braking, communications, power supply, computing, and sensors—supported by 9 LiDARs, 3 millimeter-wave radars, and 13 cameras. It shares the same domain controller as Pony.ai's 7th-generation Robotaxi to deliver 360-degree coverage without blind spots.
## BACKGROUND
L4 autonomous driving allows vehicles to handle all driving tasks without human intervention within specific operational domains. Modern autonomous heavy trucks rely on drive-by-wire chassis with built-in hardware redundancies, alongside centralized domain controllers that aggregate multi-sensor data to enable real-time motion planning and safety control.